BeyondHeadlines News Desk
New Delhi: A two-week SPARC-MHRD Workshop titled ‘Planetary Postmedia Studies: Dissensus, Diagrams and Disruption’ was inaugurated on Tuesday 06th August 2019 at the Mir Anis Hall of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University. The course work is being organised by the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance (CCMG), JMI from 06th to 24th August 2019, and is supported by Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India under its SPARC Scheme.
The workshop aims to critically investigate contemporary postmedia practices from the perspective of Deleuze and Guattari. Speaking at the inauguration of the workshop, Prof. Biswajit Das, Director, CCMG and Indian Principal Investigator (PI) of the SPARC-MHRD research project, informed that the Centre has always been engaged in foundational research in communications studies. “I am sure that the present workshop will train and educate a large number of students about the intricacies and trajectories of new media and its architecture. Any discussion on social media is more about the events and the implications. Rarely much has been talked about ‘Why’, ‘How’, and ‘What’ aspects of social media.
The present workshop will ground students with a critical and constructive engagement with new media,” he said. Prof. Das welcomes the two international instructors of the workshop: Dr. Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea (also International PI of the SPARC-MHRD project) and Dr. Joff P.N. Bradley, Teikyo University, Tokyo, Japan (also International Co-PI of the SPARC-MHRD project).
Speaking at the event, Dr. Manoj NY, Assistant Professor, CCMG and Indian Co-PI of the SPARC-MHRD project, shed light on the idea and concept behind the workshop. “Addressing the epistemic crisis that the media and communication studies faces now, this postmedia project at JMI departs from the conventional sociological and politico-economic model of analysis and focuses on the abstract and material dimensions of media in the backdrop of post/nonhuman epistemology which calls for a new genealogy of media,” he said.
The two international instructors, both professors of eminence, expressed their pleasure being in India and being part of the workshop. Prof. Lee said: “We are facing a great transition and crisis at the moment across the world. I believe that the Postmedia workshop at Jamia Millia Islamia will be a productive and constructive program to discuss what kind of better future we can bring forth in India, Japan and Korea,” Prof. Lee said at the inaugural event.
Prof. Bradley added: “I am delighted to be in Delhi to be with students and teachers at Jamia Millia Islamia to deliberate further on the possible new meanings of postmedia and its application in the Indian context.”
The coursework will impart a general introduction to post-media studies through the various theoretical deliberations on technology. The paradigmatic shift opened up by the differing constitution of computation has transformed the role of communication in the present world and subsequently reconfigured the notion of human subjectivity. This particular conjecture raises relevant concerns regarding techniques and time, questioning the linear history of technological evolution by so-called vectors of deterritorialization and ruptures in temporalization. This crisis calls for a critical and urgent re-appraisal of technicity in what Joff Bradley has called the petrification of the ‘now’.
The event was attended by professors and many scholars of the Centre as well as those from other institutions outside the Centre. Dr. Saima Saeed, Professor, CCMG, gave the vote of thanks.
